1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for separating magnetic particles and a separation method using the apparatus as well as an apparatus for capturing and separating particular substances in a fluid using magnetic particles. Of those substances, the present invention particularly relates to the capture and separation of biomolecules such as proteins, sugars, lipids, and nucleic acids, cells, or the like contained in samples derived from organisms. The present invention further relates to a detection apparatus for quantifying the amount of particular substances using the capture and separation function described above.
2. Related Background Art
Approaches for separating particular substances in samples by the use of particles are known and are large in number. In separation approaches using magnetic particles, which are intended by the present invention, surface-modified magnetic particles as typified by Dynabeads commercially available from Dynal Biotech are available for applications such as cell separation. Moreover, those employing flow cytometry approaches using micro flow channels as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,432,630 have been proposed as apparatuses for automating cell separation using the above-described particles.
An approach using an intersection of flow channels as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,068,752 in which each flow of intersecting flow channels is switched on/off to thereby cut out a fluid corresponding to the volume of the intersection has been disclosed as a method of quantitatively separating a fluid without the use of particles.
As described in the background arts above, separation approaches using magnetic particles have already been proposed and particle-by-particle separation apparatuses using the approaches have been automated. However, an additional washing step is required for eliminating the contamination of other foreign substances in a sample in the separation and extracting a particular substance contained in the sample. Besides, a method of efficiently separating a predetermined amount of particles from particles dispersed in a fluid has not been proposed yet.